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By Satya Sagar

In the times we live in, where smoke and mirrors are the world’s two chief weapons of war, fiction is a better guide to contemporary events than ‘facts’ presented by governments and media. A case in point are the horrific Easter Sunday bombings in Sri Lanka, that killed over 250 and maimed scores of people, and has sparked fears of the dreaded Islamic State’s growing presence in the region.

If you really want to know what the story is, forget searching the mainstream narrative. It is far better to watch the popular Netflix serial Sacred Games – which depicts a deadly mix of the Mumbai mafia, ambitious ‘patriotic’ politicians and religious extremists causing violence and mayhem.

For, as details emerge and reactions from key players follow, the terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka follow a pattern from several other similar operations over the last couple of decades. Yes, a handful of fanatics do carry out the actual attacks, but they are pawns in the hands of other very powerful forces, who monitor and even aid their actions, for various political and strategic purposes.

As of now, evidence in the public domain seems to show that the Easter Sunday attacks, were the work of a handful of home-grown Islamic radicals belonging to the National Thowheeth Jama’ath. Their claimed motive for the attack, which targeted churches and hotels frequented by foreign visitors, was to ‘avenge’ the massacre of Muslims at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand by a white supremacist.

However, it is difficult to believe this tiny group acted entirely on their own, unnoticed by those in authority or power and were not manipulated for goals that had nothing to do with what they themselves had in mind.

To begin with, given the fact that the Christchurch killings took place on 15 March,how likely is that within a month, a group of Muslim religious extremists in faraway Sri Lanka had put together enough explosives, scouted target locations, convinced eight people to become suicide bombers and carried out the well-coordinated attacks? Obviously preparations for the Sri Lanka bombings must have been done over several years if not more, as also pointed out in parliament by the former Sri Lankan Army Chief turned politician Field Marshal Sarath Fonseka.

If the plan was hatched several years ago the question arises, whether at that time, the original target would still have been churches? Why would they be a target for Muslim extremists, given there was hardly any history of animosity between the Muslim and Christian communities in Sri Lanka? If at all the two religious minorities would have had many reasons to be supportive of each other, as both have been battling hate campaigns and violence from Sinhala chauvinists and Buddhist extremist organizations since 2009, when Sri Lanka’s four decade long civil war against the Tamil separatist group LTTE ended.

So, was it then a target chosen by the terrorists or their handlers only in the last month or so – as a reaction to the Christchurch massacre in mid-March? That is of course possible and if true would indicate their willingness to be part of an abstract ‘global jihad’ and the extent of brainwashing the suicide bombers, mostly educated and from well-off families, had undergone.

Or was it the case that those handlingthe bombers were not aiming any message at the world in general but trying to shape politics in South Asia itself – in particular Sri Lanka and neighbouring India – both countries where ‘national security’ and ‘anti-terrorism’ have become key issues determining who will win or lose national elections? It is the timing of these bombings makes them quite suspicious.

The blasts happened bang in the middle of the Indian elections – where incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi is busy mobilizing votes for reelection, whipping up fear of terrorism and promising tougher security measures as his major planks. Modi has already used the Easter Sunday bombings repeatedly in his election speeches, citing them as an example of why India needs a ‘strong leadership’ to provide security to ordinary citizens. Since 22nd April the Indian media too has been awash with stories of how a bunch of Islamic terrorists are threatening peace all over South Asia, further feeding into the ruling BJP’s propaganda about India being under siege from Muslim ‘infiltrators and extremists’.

Sri Lanka itself is scheduled for a general election before end of 2019 – one in which Gothabaya Rajapaksa, former Defence Minister is likely to be a frontrunning candidate. He and his brother, former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, are both venerated by Sinhala nationalists for their ‘tough on terrorism’ position and for leading the country to victory against the LTTE.

Not surprisingly within a week of the Easter Sunday bombings Gothabaya has already announced that, if elected President, he would stop the spread of Islamist extremism by rebuilding the intelligence service and increasing surveillance of citizens. Several Sri Lankan commentators have noted Gothabaya as the biggest beneficiary of the terrorist attack – in political terms- as they have hugely boosted his chances of becoming the next President.

One does not have to be a crazy conspiracy theorist to suspect the mainstream narrative of what the Easter Sunday bombings were all about. A very obvious reason suspicion is the truly strange fact that Sri Lanka’s topmost political leaders and security officials did nothing to stop the bombings despite having very detailed information about these Islamist radicals, their identities, intentions and targets.

Not only did Sri Lanka’s Muslim community leaders repeatedly warn national authorities about the extremist activities of National Thowheeth Jama’ath and its leader Zahran Hashim, but Indian and other intelligence agencies tipped off top security officials in Colombo about the group’s plans along with specific sites they were targeting. Indian intelligence itself is believed to have got their information after interrogating alleged Islamic State sympathisers in September 2018 arrested from Coimbatore.

Though, they need not have interrogated anyone at all and instead just followed the incendiary YouTube videos that Zahran Hasmim, the leader of the suicide squad, was posting – many of them while based in different parts of southern India. Very strangely he was never apprehended by Indian intelligence at all and later when they tipped off their Sri Lankan counterparts about possible terrorist attacks– there was no follow up either. They could have easily gone public with the information they had, when there was no obvious action being taken. So, what exactly were they waiting for – the bombs to go off?

Another explanation for the terrible security lapse is that it was just sheer incompetence on the part of Sri Lanka’s security forces lulled into complacency after successful wiping out of the LTTE, once the world’s most deadly armed movement anywhere, a decade ago.It has also been suggested by several commentators, was the security screw-up due to infighting between Sri Lanka’s top politicians – President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

Since October 2018 Sirisena and Wickremesinghe, former political rivals who became allies in 2015 to win the national elections, have turned foes again and engaged in a bitter battle for control over the government. Sirisena sought to replace Wickremesinghe as PM by former President Mahinda Rajapaksa, someone he had publicly broken away from back in 2014. The coup was however foiled by the Sri Lankan Supreme Court, which ruled Wickremesinghe was the legitimate PM, as per the country’s Constitution.

For the last six months the President and PM of the country have been ostensibly working at cross purposes and plotting their strategy for the next general elections. After the Easter Sunday bombings Wickremesinghe claimed that intelligence information about possible terrorist attacks, that was given to Sirisena in early April this year, was hidden from him.

Was the Sri Lankan PM suggesting that the Sri Lankan President knew about the terrorist plot but allowed it to go ahead? What would be Sirisena’s possible motive to do that – unless he was trying to help his mentors Mahinda and Gothabaya Rajapaksa in their bid to return to power through elections later this year?[1]

All this may sound very diabolical, but one should remember that we are talking about people who conducted one of the most brutal wars against their own citizens in recent history anywhere – one which saw thousands killed, journalists and dissidents abducted, tortured and murdered. Over 40,000 Tamils taking refuge in government-sponsored ‘No Fire Zone’ at Mullaivaikal in northern Sri Lanka, were deliberately shelled and killed by Sri Lankan armed forces just in the last few weeks of the war in 2009. After the defeat of the LTTE, many thousand Tamil youth also disappeared without trace while scores of prisoners of war were summarily executed.

Significantly, just a day after the Easter Sunday bombings Mahinda Rajapaksa blamed the security failure on the Sri Lankan government ‘succumbing’ to global pressure to ensure accountability for the 2009 war crimes.

“From the moment this government came into power in January 2015, they have been persecuting the members of the armed forces and the intelligence services that ended that war” said Rajapaksa claiming the incumbent government was paying a heavy price for running the country ‘according to the dictates coming from foreign countries’.

The ‘global pressure’ he was referring to was of course Resolution 30/1 of the United Nations Human Rights Council passed in March 2015, following a UN investigation, calling upon the Sri Lankan government to set up a transitional justice mechanism to address allegations of various atrocities and human rights abuses committed by both the Government of Sri Lanka and the LTTE. At that time, the newly elected President Sirisena, supported the UNHRC Resolution and pledged cooperation – facing strong criticism from the Rajapaksa brothers and Sinhala chauvinist groups.

Four years down the line it is clear that Sirisena was basically warding off international scrutiny by pretending to play along, while stalling for time. As of date virtually none of the measures sought as part of the transitional justice mechanism have been implemented. Instead, Sri Lanka has brazenly refused to comply with Resolution 30/1, which required Sri Lanka to appoint international judges, defence lawyers, prosecutors and investigators to ensure the credibility of the justice process apart from establishing a Truth Commission, an Office of Missing Persons as also an Office for Reparations.

What is important to note here is that – despite their political rivalry – both President Sirisena and PM Wickremesinghe have been completely united in their resolve to block all international effort to punish any Sri Lankans involved in war crimes or crimes against humanity. Since 2009, many of the top army and naval officers involved in the Mullaivaikal massacre- venerated as war heroes by Sinhala chauvinists- have been rewarded with plum diplomatic and other postings.

Incidentally, on 7 April, just two weeks prior to the Easter Sunday bombings Gothabaya Rajapaksa, a dual US-Sri Lanka citizen, was served notices charging him in two cases of torture and murder during war time. Gothbaya was in Pasadena, California and on his way to attend an event organized to “Meet the future president” by former Sri Lankan consul in Los Angeles Malraj de Silva.

While the first case was filed by International Truth and Justice Project (ITJP), an NGO, on behalf of a Tamil torture victim the other was by Ahimsa Wickrematunge, daughter of well-known Sri Lankan journalist Lasantha Wickrematunge, who was shot in broad daylight by gunmen in January 2009. It is widely believed that Lasantha was killed after he exposed a controversial fighter aircraft deal implicating Gotabhaya Rajapaksa in a kickback scheme.

The two notices were, an indication of how the noose is tightening around the Rajapaksas for their past crimes. The terrorist attacks took place just two weeks later on 22 April, changing both the national and global discourse on Sri Lanka.Overnight, the story was nolonger about a country run by war criminals who need to brought to justice but one of a beleaguered nation threatened by global jihadists –none less than the biggest villain of them all – the Islamic State or Daesh itself.

The sheer number of long-term objectives that have been achieved with the Easter Sunday bombings on behalf of Sri Lanka’s nationalists and Buddhist chauvinists – who believe the entire country belongs only to them, all others being second-class citizens – is staggering. If one stone can be used to kill two birds as the saying goes, then a few terrorist bombs seem to have knocked off an entire flock of winged creatures.

Firstly the country’s Christians – harassed for long by Buddhist extremists- have been directly hit. Their churches destroyed and many community members killed and they are not likely to raise their heads to demand any of their rights for a long time to come.

The blame for these attacks has been squarely put on extremist Muslims (which is factually correct, as per information we have now) making it easier to put the entire community under permanent siege. Already the Sri Lankan government has ordered a house-to-house search for terrorists – no prizes for guessing whose houses- and banned the wearing of the veil in public by Muslim women. The fate of Sri Lanka’s Muslims as second-class citizens, a status accorded to the country’s Tamil population for long, seems to firmly sealed now.

At the latest UNHRC meeting in March 2019 Sri Lanka was censured for its failure to take any effective steps towards providing justice to the victims of the 2009 massacre but still managed to find enough international support to extend its deadline for compliance by another two years. The 22nd April attacks are now likely to be used by Sri Lanka to scuttle the entire transitional justice process imposed on it by the UN and the international community – all in the name of ‘ensuring national security’.

And the great, crowning glory of this entire, sordid episode of Sri Lanka’s Sacred Games, will be when elections happenend of the year and Gothabaya Rajapaksa is finally elected President.

The only hope now, is the possibility that he will not be greeted on this occasion by his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi, who may not be the Prime Minister of India anymore by that time.

Satya Sagar is a journalist and public health worker who can be reached at sagarnama@gmail.com

[1]Incidentally, a December 2016 report in the Sri Lanka Mirror, that claimed both the National Thowheeth Jamaa’th and the Buddhist extremist group Bodu Bala Sena were funded from the same account set up by Sri Lankan intelligence when Mahinda was President has completely disappeared from the net. https://srilankamirror.com/news/796-thowheed-jamath-bbs-both-funded-by-single-secret-account

30 April 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Countercurrents Team

The past year has been immensely successful for the war industry.

The world has spent $1.8 trillion on its military in 2018. The US is leading the charge, while some of its NATO allies are also buffing their war budgets citing the Russian threat despite Moscow decreasing its military spending.

The driving force behind this increase is the growing appetite of the US military-industrial complex rather than real threats, analysts say. Washington’s close friend Saudi Arabia is the third largest military spender, coming ahead of India.

New data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said on April 29, 2019:

Total world military expenditure rose to $1822 billion in 2018. It represents an increase of 2.6 per cent from 2017.

The five biggest spenders in 2018 were the U.S., China, Saudi Arabia, India and France. These five biggest spenders together accounted for 60 per cent of global military spending.

Military spending by the USA increased for the first time since 2010, while spending by China grew for the 24th consecutive year.

Total global military spending rose for the second consecutive year in 2018, to the highest level since 1988 — the first year for which consistent global data is available.

World military spending is now 76 per cent higher than the post-cold war low in 1998. World military spending in 2018 represented 2.1 per cent of global gross domestic product (GDP) or $239 per person.

According to Dr Nan Tian, a researcher with the SIPRI Arms and Military Expenditure (AMEX) program, in 2018 the USA and China accounted for half of the world’s military spending. The higher level of world military expenditure in 2018 is mainly the result of significant increases in spending by these two countries.

USA and China lead increase in world military expenditure

US military spending grew — for the first time since 2010 — by 4.6 per cent, to reach $649 billion in 2018. The USA remained by far the largest spender in the world, and spent almost as much on its military in 2018 as the next eight largest-spending countries combined.

Dr Aude Fleurant, the director of the SIPRI AMEX program, said: “The increase in US spending was driven by the implementation from 2017 of new arms procurement programs under the Trump administration.”

China, the second-largest spender in the world, increased its military expenditure by 5.0 per cent to $250 billion in 2018. This was the 24th consecutive year of increase in Chinese military expenditure. Its spending in 2018 was almost 10 times higher than in 1994, and accounted for 14 per cent of world military spending.

“Growth in Chinese military spending tracks the country’s overall economic growth,” says Tian. “China has allocated 1.9 per cent of its GDP to the military every year since 2013.”

Three decades of growth in military spending in Asia and Oceania

Military expenditure in Asia and Oceania has risen every year since 1988. At $507 billion, military spending in the region accounted for 28 per cent of the global total in 2018, compared with just 9.0 per cent in 1988.

India Pakistan S Korea

In 2018, India increased its military spending by 3.1 per cent to $66.5 billion.

Military expenditure by Pakistan grew by 11 per cent (the same level of growth as in 2017), to reach $11.4 billion in 2018.

South Korean military expenditure was $43.1 billion in 2018 — an increase of 5.1 per cent compared with 2017 and the highest annual increase since 2005.

Siemon Wezeman, a senior researcher with the SIPRI AMEX program, said: “The tensions between countries in Asia as well as between China and the USA are major drivers for the continuing growth of military spending in the region.”

Increases in Central and East European countries

Several countries in Central and Eastern Europe made large increases in their military expenditure in 2018.

Spending by Poland rose by 8.9 per cent in 2018 to $11.6 billion, while Ukraine’s spending was up by 21 per cent to $4.8 billion.

Spending by Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania also grew (ranging from 18 per cent to 24 per cent) in 2018.

Pieter Wezeman, a senior researcher with the SIPRI AMEX program, said: “The increases in Central and Eastern Europe are largely due to growing perceptions of a threat from Russia. This is despite the fact that Russian military spending has fallen for the past two years.”

Russia

Russia slipped two places to claim sixth spot by spending some $61.4 billion on the military in 2018, 3.5 percent less than in 2017.

South America

Military spending in South America rose by 3.1 per cent in 2018. This was mainly due to the increase in Brazilian spending (by 5.1 per cent), the second increase in as many years.

Africa

Military expenditure in Africa fell by 8.4 per cent in 2018, the fourth consecutive annual decrease since the peak in spending in 2014. There were major decreases in spending by Algeria (–6.1 per cent), Angola (–18 per cent) and Sudan (–49 per cent).

Middle East

Military spending by states in the Middle East for which data is available fell by 1.9 per cent in 2018. Total military expenditure by all 29 North Atlantic Treaty Organization members was $963 billion in 2018, which accounted for 53 per cent of world spending.

Largest absolute increase

The largest absolute increase in spending in 2018 was by the USA ($27.8 billion), while the biggest decrease was by Saudi Arabia (–$4.6 billion).

Turkey

Military spending in Turkey increased by 24 per cent in 2018 to $19.0 billion, the highest annual percentage increase among the world’s top 15 military spenders.

Highest military burden

Six of the 10 countries with the highest military burden (military spending as a proportion of GDP) in the world in 2018 are in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia (8.8 per cent of GDP), Oman (8.2 per cent), Kuwait (5.1 per cent), Lebanon (5.0 per cent), Jordan (4.7 per cent) and Israel (4.3 per cent).

[All percentage changes are expressed in real terms (constant 2017 prices).]

SIPRI said:

SIPRI monitors developments in military expenditure worldwide and maintains the most comprehensive, consistent and extensive data source available on military expenditure.

Military expenditure refers to all government spending on current military forces and activities, including salaries and benefits, operational expenses, arms and equipment purchases, military construction, research and development, and central administration, command and support.

SIPRI therefore discourages the use of terms such as ‘arms spending’ when referring to military expenditure, as spending on armaments is usually only a minority of the total.

SIPRI tracks the data since 1988.

If the world were to spend this money on something else, the amount in question would constitute 2.1 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP) or $239 per person, according to the SIPRI report.

Washington’s NATO allies

Washington’s NATO allies have seen pressure from the US related to their military spending ever since Donald Trump came to power in the White House. It has less to do with security of the alliance and more with the interests of the US arms manufacturers.

Hawks in the U.S. typically justify the need for ever-increasing military expenditures with some perceived threats from Russia or China, portraying them as warmongers.

The US and its allies grossly outspend all the nations they perceive as alleged threats. The US expenditures alone accounted for 36 percent of global defense spending while exceeding the expenditures of the next eight largest-spending countries combined in 2018.

NATO’s total military spending accounted for 53 percent of the global defense expenditures.

China’s defense budget amounted to only a fraction of the US one and accounted for 14 percent of the global military spending.

However, these facts do not stop the biggest military spender in the world – U.S. – to accuse Moscow of somehow initiating an “arms race.”

30 April 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

Palestinians pledge to continue the dream of passing land to their children and grandchildren amid accelerating seizures

By Shatha Hammad

Tayseer Ataya stands, leaning on his cane and gazing at his plot of land on Risan hill, west of Ramallah. The 65-year-old man has been forbidden from accessing his property for close to a year. In August 2018, Israeli settlers built homes for themselves on parts of Ataya’s 25-acre (104 dunum) land in the village of Ras Karkar. He says from that moment onwards, he knew his dreams of passing on the land to his children and grandchildren were crushed. ‘It is this struggle that I’ll be passing on to my children, who will never give up’

His plot is just one parcel of close to 250 acres (1,000 dunum) of land that Israel first laid its hand on in 1983. A military court had frozen a land confiscation order, and that remained the case for the past 35 years. Over the past year, however, settlement construction intensified. On 16 August, a new agricultural settler outpost was built, in just two days. Livestock and water tanks were brought, a new road was paved to serve the Jewish-only community, and Israeli army reinforcements arrived to provide protection.

Speaking to Middle East Eye, Ataya says that the confiscation order is not limited to the 247 acres, but will extend further than that under the pretext of security. “I’ve tried to access my land several times, but every time I approach it, soldiers surrounded me and prevent me from walking over to it,” he says. Ataya inherited his land through his paternal grandfather. “I will not give up on my land. Even though I have difficulty walking, I try to access my land every week, and I will not stop trying to retrieve it,” he says.

Ottoman law
Next to Ataya stands 52-year-old lawyer Wadi’ Nofal. He holds a stack of papers that proves the ownership of 75 heirs within his family over close to nine acres (40 dunums) of land on Risan hill. “Many Israeli judges live in the settlements built on our private land, so we do not expect He explained that the land was seized based on the 1858 Ottoman law which Israel has been using since 1980 to expropriate private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank.

In 1968, a year after Israel occupied the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip; it stopped the land registration process in the newly occupied territories. Until 1980, Israel had been using military orders to confiscate private Palestinian land and build settlements on them, while claiming security needs.

In 1979, however, Palestinians whose land was confiscated petitioned Israel’s High Court of Justice (HCJ), arguing a violation of international law, and won. But the case was rare; the court could not rule that the establishment of the settlement would serve military needs, because settlers testified they intended to live there for religious and political reasons.

Facts on the ground
Following the court’s ruling, Israel began rewriting provisions within the Ottoman Land Code and applying its own interpretation, to declare private Palestinian property as state land. Between 1979 and 2002, Israel declared more than 220 acres (90,000 hectares) of land as state land. The latter now makes up 22 percent of the entire West Bank. “They are creating facts on the ground, by taking over land and expanding into the surrounding territories,” says Wadi’.

He explained that the 247 acres of land (1,000 dunum) are owned by Palestinians from surrounding villages of Ras Karkar, Khirbetha Bani Hareth, and Kufr Ni’ma. Wadi’ arranges the stack of paper in his hands and grips it tightly lest the papers are blown away by the wind. “It’s extremely painful, that I am standing here, just a few metres away from my land, and not able to reach it. It is painful for me to be a lawyer and not have the ability to defend my rights.”

‘Consequences for the entire region’
Abdullah Abu Rahma, from the Palestinian Authority’s National Committee to Resist the Wall and Settlements, tells MEE that the outpost is merely a prelude to the establishment of a large settlement on Risan hill – under Area C of the occupied West Bank. Abu Rahma explains that the goal, aside from taking over land, is to link the nearby settlements west of Ramallah with one of the major settlements in the area – Modi’in Ilit – where some 70,000 Israelis live.

The latter has been built on lands belonging to the Palestinian villages Nilin, Safa, Deir Qaddis and Khirbetha Bani Hareth. “This plan won’t only affect landowners, it will have consequences for the entire region of the West Bank and Jerusalem,” he continues, explaining that it will obstruct the territorial contiguity of Palestinian villages and their natural expansion.

‘Land means life’
Naser Nofal, 63, owns 10 dunums on the Risan hill, which he inherited from his great grandfather. “Anyone who comes to this area, and sees it, will know very well that Israel’s claims are false,” says Naser. “Our lands are cultivated and rich with 400-year-old trees. We have always tended to our lands.”

He knows that it is a strategic area for Israeli settlers. The hill has a view of the country’s coastline, as well as the Jordanian hills, and the holy city, Jerusalem. “By using false claims and forced laws they are taking over the hilltops, and stealing Palestinian lands, which are a source of daily sustenance,” continues Naser. “Land means life. I will continue to defend my land until I die, and I will not let Israelis take it over.”

Settler assaults
Radi Abu Fakhida, head of the Karkar village council, tells MEE that another petition was filed against the confiscation decision, but that Israeli courts had rejected the appeal. It did, however, issue a ruling in favour of land owned by one of the residents, Ibrahim Abu Fakhida, upon which a 700-metre long road was built to serve the Israeli settlement.

“If we succeed in retrieving [Ibrahim’s] land, we would be able to block the road to the new settlement and halt the movement of settlers into this area,” says Radi. “The Israeli army has prevented us from doing this so far, and claims there are no alternative road to the settlement.” Ras Karkar village lies about 15km west of Ramallah city, and has a total area of about 7,000 dunum (1,730 acres). It is surrounded by six Israeli settlements built on parts of the village’s land. Radi, the head of the council, says that some 2,000 dunums of property (close to 500 acres), have been confiscated so far for the building of settlements and settlement infrastructure.

Settler attacks against the village, he continues, have escalated intensively since August 2018. At least 130 ancient Roman olive trees have been cut down, anti-Palestinian, racist slogans have been graphitized on vehicles, and famers are continuously prevented from reaching their lands. “The families of Ras Karkar have not surrendered in the face of settler assaults. They go to their lands and farms on a daily basis and harvest their crops,” says Radi.

Defending the land
Israeli confiscation orders have also hit the nearby village of Kufr Ni’ma, which extends onto Risan hill. Khaldoun al-Dik, head of Kufr Ni’ma’s village council, explains that Israeli authorities confiscated more than 160 acres (650 dunum) of property belonging to families of the village.
A road serving the settlement took up some an additional 60 acres (250 dunum) of village land. Families who had their land stolen tried all available, non-violent methods, to retrieve their lands, says al-Dik. They petitioned Israeli courts and held sit-ins on their properties.

“This is Palestinian land and we have the documents to prove it,” says al-Dik. “Confiscating these lands and building settlements on them means that the security of the area will be greatly affected, and the colonial policies will extend onto more village land.”

Since August 2018, Risan hill has been a hotspot for confrontations between Palestinians hailing from the various surrounding villages attempting to reach their lands, and Israeli occupation soldiers, in rejection of colonial policies. The families tend to hold Friday prayers on the hill as an act of protest. Israeli soldiers respond with a flurry of tear gas bombs and rubber-coated steel bullets.

Back in Ras Karkar, Ataya says that more Palestinians need to protest against discriminatory Israeli policies. “We need thousands of Palestinians to come here and defend this land with us,” says.

28 April 2019

Source: palestineupdates.com

By Ranjan Solomon

In this issue of Palestine Updates, we bring you narratives of Palestinian farmers who speak with defiance and longing about the land they have lost. It is theirs but often stolen from under their very noses. They can gaze in gloom and hope. Many have grown old from the day they were driven from the land in the horrors of The Nakba; then the occupation. And now the Nakba grows as ethnic cleansing is pursued with impunity while the world watches in tacit acceptance of the war criminalities happen in front of our very own eyes. More land is stolen and settlements come up. We are complicit in that crime of ethnic cleansing by our hush and apathy. And yet, Palestinians will not budge from the highway of hope. Indian writer, novelist, and political commentator put it best when she argued: “The system will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability”.

Palestinian farmers are doing just this. They are asserting: “Land means life.”Despite Israel’s military superiority, they invest their hopes in the notion of justice and persistent resistance. “We need thousands of Palestinians to come here and defend this land with us,” they insist.

28 April 2019

Source: palestineupdates.com

By Kalinga Seneviratne

SINGAPORE (IDN) – “I gave leadership to the government that defeated the terrorists that no one thought could ever be defeated. From the moment this government came into power in January 2015, they have been persecuting the members of the armed forces and the intelligence services that ended that war,” said former President and Current Opposition Leader Mahinda Rajapakse in an emotional 10 minute address to parliament on April 23.

With his voice almost cracking up with emotion, the war-winning president said that “the armed forces personnel who carried out their duties on behalf of the nation were harassed and hunted down by this government”. He slammed the government for listening to foreign (western) powers and undermining national security.

“The government should at least now realise that you cannot run this country according to the dictates coming from foreign countries. We have to solve our own problems. Because the government was engaged in relentlessly persecuting its own armed forces, we became an easy target for terrorists,” pointed out Rajapakse, adding that “no other country in the world has persecuted and weakened their own armed forces and intelligence services in this manner”.

While social media is blocked by the government, his comments have triggered a debate in much of the mainstream media about how the government led by President Maitripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe has been inept at protecting the security of the country, because they have allowed western governments, NGOs funded by them and UN organisations like the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to dictate national security policies to them.

In September 2015, the government virtually surrendered the policy making process to the UNHRC when it co-sponsored a resolution calling upon the government to account for alleged war crimes and missing persons during the final push to eliminate one of the deadliest terrorist groups in the world at the time, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).

This has led to pressure on the government to set up war crimes courts with foreign judges, set up a missing persons investigation centre and imprisonment of former intelligence officers and army personnel, many of whom are seen by most Sri Lankans as war heroes, who brought peace to the country. At the time of the Easter Sunday attack, the government was on the verge of repealing the ‘Prevention of Terrorism Act’ under the dictates of the West and UNHRC.

“If that had happened what position would we be at today?” asked Rajapakse.

In a video interview given by leading Constitutional Lawyer Manohara de Silva on April 23 that was widely circulated via email, he also slammed the government for giving the responsibility for the country’s security to the international community. He blamed the 2015 UNHRC resolution for the current situation where the country’s security guard was lowered.

He pointed out that the new anti-terror law that was presented to parliament recently, makes it impossible to pursue or charge anyone for terrorism activity if that person is a foreign national – even though he may have been a Sri Lankan national before.

“If the country he lives now don’t agree, we can’t charge him,” he notes. “So this law is going to be subservient to the West (because most of those who support terrorism in Sri Lanka have obtained asylum in Western countries, especially LTTE sympathisers)”. He accuses the government of trying to please the West rather than protecting “our citizens”.

Silva pointed out in the interview that about 40 intelligence officers who helped to end terrorism in Sri Lanka are now behind bars. “They are still held on remand when there is no sound evidence against them,” he notes. “If so they should be charged by now.”

This has led to a situation, argues Silva, that intelligence officers are afraid to investigate terrorism threats today because they are worried that they would be framed like those in jail. “We cannot operate our intelligence services this way. This is why we have to depend on Indian intelligence,” he argues.

Silva also points out that 54 bills have been passed against “our army” under pressure from UNHRC and the missing persons act passed does not allow the police to the investigations, but delegates it to the ‘Office of Missing Persons’ that is stacked with anti-national NGO types, one of whom is Dr Nilmalka Fernando, a well-known anti-Buddhist western-funded NGO activist.

In a statement released to the media today on April 25, Sri Lanka’s major Buddhist chapter, Asgiriya chapter, called upon the government to give an immediate pardon to all imprisoned intelligence officials and draft them back into the country’s national security framework. “Religious extremism spread in the country because experienced intelligence officials have been imprisoned for various reasons. They did an immense service to defeat terrorism. We need to consider our national security and they should be pardoned and released immediately,” the statement said.

Another Sri Lankan lawyer, Dharshan Weerasekare, author of ‘UN’s Relentless Pursuit of Sri Lanka’ in a commentary published in Lankaweb has called into question the timing and reason for the Easter Sunday attack.

“What is crucial is that the bombings not be permitted to become a pretext for the Government to join the U.S.’s ‘War on Terror.’ For the past four years, the U.S. and India (the U.S.’s new ally in Asia) have been busy trying to gain maximum indirect control over Sri Lanka in order to prevent the Chinese from establishing a presence in this country,” he argues.“They would have succeeded had it not been for the collapse of the ‘National Government’ and the subsequent collapse of the drive to enact a new Constitution”.

With both presidential and parliamentary elections due in Sri Lanka within the next 12 months, the nationalist alliance led by Rajapakse is strongly tipped to win both elections. Survival of the staunchly pro-Western Wickremasingle is crucial for the West to control Sri Lanka’s destiny.

In March 2018 when a no-confidence motion against the PM was gathering momentum a riot broke out between Muslims and Buddhists in Central Sri Lanka. Timely action by local community leaders of both communities prevented it becoming a major nationwide conflict.

Then when Sirisena sacked Wickremasinghe and appointed Rajapakse as PM in November 2018, Western ambassadors in Colombo openly interfered in the domestic political process to get Wickremasinghe reinstalled. Now come the terror attacks that have the potential to create chaos in the country so that Sri Lanka could be called a ‘failed state’, ripe for the West’s new-colonialism via the R2P (Right to Protect) framework.

“Sri Lanka which sits at a strategically vital spot in the Indian Ocean is crucial for both the Americans as well as the Chinese, the former in order to further entrench their control over this region, the latter to break out of the ‘encirclement’“ notes Weerasekare, pointing out that a new government that would take power after elections next year could be heavily pro-nationalist as well as pro-Chinese.

“In short, all the hopes that the Americans/Indians had in January 2015 are now in ruins, and the ‘gains’ they made in the last four years are very much in danger of being reversed.”

Sri Lanka’s oldest leftist party Lanka Sama Samaji Party (LSSP), while issuing a condolence message to victims of the bombing, said there was something more sinister than what meets the eye. “This whole attack has similarities with events abroad that have been attributed to the CIA of the USA,” the statement argued.

The statement added: “It is known that the CIA and USA think tanks are operating here with the support of the Government. With the blue print for a police state, the diabolical Counter Terrorist Act (CTA) available, to ensure that the UNF (governing alliance) can stay in power, without holding elections, the path to becoming a neo-colony of the USA can go ahead without interruption.”

Thus, what happened on Easter Sunday, may not be merely a jihadist attack on Christians and Western tourists to take revenge on the New Zealand Christchurch massacre in March 2019. This could well be part of the dirty geo-political wars being fought around the world by major powers with young brainwashed religious zealots as fodder. [IDN-InDepthNews – 25 April 2019]

Photo: The Kingsbury Hotel in Colombo, which was among three Colombo hotels hit by suicide bombers on Easter Sunday. CC BY-SA 4.0

IDN is flagship agency of the International Press Syndicate.

facebook.com/IDN.GoingDeeper – twitter.com/InDepthNews

25 April 2019

Source: www.indepthnews.net

By Mike Head

The United Nations special rapporteur on the right to privacy, Joe Cannataci, was finally permitted yesterday to meet with Julian Assange inside London’s Belmarsh prison.

The WikiLeaks journalist and publisher has been held virtually incommunicado, in denial of his fundamental legal and democratic rights, since the British police dragged him out of Ecuador’s embassy more than two weeks ago.

This has become a global battle for free speech and right of the public to know the truth about the crimes being committed by governments and their state agencies around the world.

Assange is being persecuted, and subjected to an unprecedented legal assault, for publishing millions of secret documents exposing political conspiracies and corporate crimes. Without this extraordinary record of authentic investigative journalism since 2006, this information would have remained suppressed.

Confronted by worldwide protests and petitions against the illegal termination of Assange’s political asylum and the immediate launching of proceedings to extradite Assange to the US, the British government felt compelled to grant the UN access. Cannataci became the first person allowed into Belmarsh prison to visit Assange, who has even been denied his right to speak to his family.

For weeks, the UN has been investigating the blanket surveillance conducted by Ecuador’s government against Assange inside its embassy.

On April 10, WikiLeaks revealed that hundreds of thousands of documents, audio recordings, videos and photos were taken in the embassy. Assange was arrested the very next day, preventing a scheduled April 25 visit by Cannataci.

Ecuadorian officials spied on every aspect of Assange’s life for more than a year, including his medical consultations and confidential meetings with his lawyers. The obvious purpose of this illegal operation was to gather or concoct evidence that the Trump administration could use to indict and extradite Assange on manufactured conspiracy and espionage charges.

Outside the prison yesterday, Cannataci told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: “There are strong indications that some elements of his privacy may have been breached.” He added: “The case is important because it concerns a very special set of circumstances where a person who is not formally under detention yet was subjected to surveillance.”

Having met with Assange for two hours, the UN special envoy reported that Assange was “in fairly good shape and certainly very cogent in replying to our questions.” This is another indication of Assange’s defiant determination to fight his removal to the US, despite the damage done to his health by his seven-year confinement inside the Ecuadorian embassy.

Interviewed by the Italian newspaper Repubblica, Cannataci pointed to the far-reaching nature of the spying. He said he was seeking access to the material currently held by the Spanish police, who are investigating an attempt to extort WikiLeaks for copies of the documents and videos.

“If and when my access is granted, that evidence might consist of thousands of hours of surveillance footage, which will take some time to watch.”

The UN rapporteur agreed with the Repubblica journalist, Stefania Maurizi, that the spying operation against Assange threatened an entire range of human rights, including lawyer-client confidentiality. “[T]here are many dimensions to the case, including freedom of expression, including whistleblowing, protection of journalistic sources,” he said.

The UN is investigating whether Ecuador violated Assange’s privacy under two cornerstones of international law—the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights—by placing him under strict surveillance.

Jennifer Robinson, a lawyer representing Assange, an Australian citizen, said in a statement that his legal team welcomed the UN’s continued engagement in the case. “It is a matter of grave concern that Ecuador expelled Mr Assange from the embassy before the scheduled UN visit could take place,” she said.

Robinson said the legal team had also requested a visit to Assange by the UN special rapporteur on torture. She recalled that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention had ruled in late 2015 that Assange was “arbitrarily detained,” as a result of having to remain in the embassy to protect himself from US extradition, and called for his release.

Chelsea Manning, the courageous whistleblower who leaked the infamous “Collateral Murder” video and many thousands of incriminating US diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, has been held in solitary confinement for over six weeks because she has refused to give perjured testimony against Assange before a Grand Jury. Her continued detention is a transparent attempt to force her to cooperate in the US-led vendetta against Assange.

If Assange is dispatched to the US on bogus computer hacking charges, he will soon face additional charges, carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment or the death penalty. This would set an international precedent for the jailing of journalists everywhere who expose government crimes and wrongdoing.

Since Assange’s arrest, numerous corporate publications have lined up directly behind this offensive. They have brazenly used Ecuador’s video footage and other illegal surveillance material to repeat the personal smears against Assange fabricated by the corrupt Ecuadorian regime to justify its termination of his political asylum.

These lies and slanders against Assange are in contrast to the immense support that he enjoys among the millions of workers, students and young people internationally who regard him and Manning as heroes. The mass opposition to Assange’s persecution must be transformed into a political movement to prevent his extradition and secure his freedom. The WSWS and the Socialist Equality Parties (SEP) around the world are playing a central role in this decisive fight.

Over the past 18 months, the SEP (Australia) has held a series of rallies, demanding that the Australian government immediately fulfil its obligations to Assange, as an Australian citizen, by securing his return to Australia, with a guarantee against extradition to the US.

Another rally, aimed at placing this demand at the centre of the May 18 Australian federal election, will be held in Sydney this Saturday, followed by meetings in a number of cities.

The SEP in the UK has taken part in protests and vigils calling for an all-out mobilisation against the moves to extradite Assange. It will participate in a London public meeting, called by the Julian Assange Defence Committee, today.

This crucial struggle is entirely bound up with the fight for genuine socialism. As the all-out assault on Assange and Manning by governments and the corporate media conglomerates demonstrates, securing fundamental democratic rights requires nothing less than the worldwide transformation of society by the working class to meet social needs, not the profit interests of the financial aristocracy.

This internationalist and socialist perspective animates the 2019 International Online May Day Rally, organised by the International Committee of the Fourth International and the World Socialist Web Site. We urge our readers to register today.

Originally published in WSWS.org

26 April 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Rene Wadlow

On Tuesday, 23 April 2019, the United Nations Security Council voted resolution N° 2467 concerning the use of rape as a weapon in times of armed conflict. This resolution builds on an earlier resolution of 24 June 2013 which called for the complete and immediate cessation of all acts of sexual violation by all parties in armed conflicts. The new resolution introduced by Germany contained two new elements, both of which were eliminated in the intense negotiations in the four days prior to the vote of 13 in favor and two abstentions, those of Russia and China.

The first new element in the German proposed text concerned help to the victims of rape. The proposed paragraph was “urges United Nations entities and donors to provide non-discrimatory and comprehensive health services including sexual and reproductive health, psychosocial, legal and livelihodd support and other multi-sectoral services for survivors of sexual violence, taking into account the special needs of persons with disabilities.”

The U.S. delegation objected to this paragraph claiming that “sexual and reproductive health” were code words that opened a door to abortion. Since a U.S. veto would prevent the resolution as a whole, the paragraph was eliminated. There had been four days of intense discussions among the Security Council members concerning this paragraph, with only the U.S. opposed to any form of planned parenthood action. After the resolution was passed with the health paragraph eliminated, the Permanent Representative of France, Ambassador Francois Delatte spoke for many of the members saying “It is intolerable and incomprehensible that the Security Council is incapable of acknowledging that women and girls who suffered from sexual violence in conflict and who obviously didn’t choose to become pregnant should have the right to terminate their pregnancy.”

The second concept of the German draft that was eliminated was the proposal to create a working group to monitor and to review progress on ending sexual violence in armed conflict. Such a working group was opposed by the diplomats of Russia and China, both of which have the veto power. Thus, for the same reason as with the U.S. opposition, the idea of a monitoring working group was dropped. Both China and Russia are opposed to any form of U.N. monitoring, fearing that their actions on one topic or another would be noted by a monitoring group. The Russian diplomat had to add that he was against the added administrative burden that a monitoring group would present but that Russia was against sexual violence in conflict situations.

Thus the new U.N. Security Council resolution 2467 is weaker than it should have been, but is nevertheless a step forward in building awareness. The Association of World Citizens first raised the issue in the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in March 2001 citing the judgement of the International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia which maintained that there can be no time limitations on bringing an accused to trial. The Tribunal also reinforced the possibility of universal jurisdiction that a person can be tried not only by his national court but by any court claiming universal jurisdiction and where the accused is present.

The Association of World Citizens again stressed the use of rape as a weapon of war in the Special Session of the Commission on Human Rights Violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo citing the findings of Meredeth Turshen and Clotilde Twagiramariya in their book What Women Do in Wartime: Gender and Conflict in Africa. (London: Zed Press, 1998). They write “There are numerous types of rape. Rape is committed to boast the soldiers’ morale, to feed soldiers’ hatred of the enemy, their sense of superiority, and to keep them fighting: rape is one kind of war booty; women are raped because war intensifies men’s sense of entitlement, superiority, avidity, and social licence to rape: rape is a weapon of war used to spread political terror; rape can destabilize a society and break its resistance; rape is a form of torture; gang rapes in public terrorize and silence women because they keep the civilian population functioning and are essential to its social and physical continuity; rape is used in ethnic cleansing; it is designed to drive women from their homes or destroy their possibility of reproduction within or “for” their community; genocidal rape treats women as “reproductive vessels”; to make them bear babies of the rapists’ nationality, ethnicity, race or religion, and genocidal rape aggravates women’s terror and future stigma, producing a class of outcast mothers and children – this is rape committed with consciousness of how unacceptable a raped woman is to the patriarchal community and to herself. This list combines individual and group motives with obedience to military command; in doing so, it gives a political context to violence against women, and it is this political context that needs to be incorporated in the social response to rape.”

The Security Council resolution opens the door to civil society organizations to build on the concepts eliminated from the governmental resolution itself. Non-governmental organizations must play an ever-more active role in providing services to rape victims with medical, psychological and socio-cultural services. In addition, if the U.N. is unable to create a monitoring and review of information working group, then such a monitoring group will have to be the task of cooperative efforts among NGOs. It is always to be hoped that government acting together would provide the institutions necessary to promote human dignity. But with the failure of governments to act, our task as non-governmental representatives is set out for us.

Rene Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens

26 April 2019

Source: countercurrents.org

By Israel Today News

Tactical nukes and ground invasion planned for Iran, according to whistleblower.

18 Apr 2019 – President Donald Trump and his inner circle are planning an extensive invasion of Iran, according to a source working in the White House.

The plan involves a ground invasion and the use of tactical nuclear weapons, in a campaign planned for the Fall of 2019. Iran will be “wiped off the map” according to the source, and the war effort is expected to cost “two and half times the Iraq War.”

The war will be promoted by the news media and Trump will go right along with it, after an “expected False Flag pinned on Iran, probably something involving the boats in the Strait of Hormuz.” The False Flag is an “integral part of the plan” as Iran has reportedly no desire or intent to start a war, according to the whistleblower.

The war plans have the White House staff “in an excited tizzy” as war-hawks like John Bolton put the “finishing touches” on the planned strike. President Trump initially showed resistance to the plan, but has since jumped on board with enthusiasm, convinced Iran is an “existential threat to Israel” and as such, a war is required to “eliminate them.”

Further details have been revealed, including:

• 100 tactical nukes will be used to eliminate the Iranian military.
• 120,000 U.S. ground troops will be used in the invasion.
• France, the U.K., Canada, Saudi Arabia and Israel are expected to join a “coalition” in support of the war.
• CIA assets and counter-intel efforts have been ramped-up over the past year in preparation.
• A “False Flag” is being prepared to be used before the war with Iran.
• Propaganda is being prepped by White House and Israeli counterparts.
• Israel will support the effort and Benjamin Netanyahu was reportedly “smiling ear to ear” during a recent meeting with John Bolton.
• There are concerns Trump’s “base” may resist or criticize the efforts, so further propaganda efforts are being made to “shore up support” for the war.
• Expected casualties range between 1.2 Million and 2 Million Iranians and 5,000 US troops.

Due to President Trump’s close relationship with Jared Kushner, a sense of “sober import” has been placed on the war effort, which is being as a fulfillment of “Jewish prophecy” within White House circles. Many in the White House believe Jared Kushner is the “Messiah” or Jewish “Moshiach” who cannot attain his “throne” until Iran is wiped out.

The White House source is a high level official who has been right about many other things in the past, and their identity has been verified.

The information in this article was provided to David Goldberg, a Jewish advocate and fellow at the Jewish Center for Antisemitic Study, by a former White House employee only known by the name of “Isabel”. Her story has been aired on Mr. Goldberg’s YouTube channel, and she continues to provide valuable information about what is going on in the Trump White House.

Antisemitic attacks against Mr. Goldberg continue, and are documented in his video series. Efforts to block this information and shut down the social media accounts of Mr. Goldberg continue to be an issue.

Israel Today News

22 April 2019

Source: www.transcend.org

By Paul Rogers

They armed Gadaffi and the forces that ousted him alike – now they’re repeating that profitable trick.

18 Apr 2019 – Top of FormIn the shadow world of the arms trade there is one business model that outshines all others: selling arms to both sides in the same war. Ideally it works best when weapons you have sold to one side destroy weapons you have sold to the other. Thus if one side uses air-launched precision-guided missiles to destroy the other’s aircraft (or tanks, armoured personnel carriers or whatever), then it will need to buy replacement missiles, will need to have your people service its aircraft and, if it ‘wins’ the war it will most likely buy new planes from you as it rearms. The other side will need to replace the materiel destroyed, will want to upgrade its weapons and also buy in heavily for the next phase of the conflict.

All this is a matter of routine business and the results of a war will often be reflected in marketing afterwards. In 1982 the UK fought a short and bitter war with Argentina for control of the Falklands/Malvinas; in the months that followed military magazines carried full-page adverts for ship-based anti-aircraft missiles that had been successfully used to shoot down Argentine aircraft. The adverts were the same as those published before that war but for the words ‘combat proven’ stamped across them.

There was bitter irony in this when it was learned that one such missile, fired from a British Type 42 destroyer, had shot down a British army helicopter by mistake, killing all four people on board. To add to the bitterness, two Type 42s had also been sold by Britain to Argentina before the war.

Arms companies maintained teams in Libya upgrading planes and armoured vehicles until just a few days before the western bombing campaign started

Arming both sides happens more often than is realised. One of the classic examples was Libya towards the end of the Gaddafi regime in 2011. What makes this particularly relevant just now is that it looks like happening again as Khalifa Haftar’s forces move slowly towards Tripoli.

For and against Gaddafi

First, though, look at the earlier example. As far as western countries were concerned, the autocratic Gaddafi regime had come in from the cold in 2004 after the war in Iraq. The previous arms embargo had been lifted in 2005 and within a couple of years this oil- and gas-rich state was seen as a prime customer for arms. From 2005 to 2009 the EU granted €834.5m of arms export licences, Italy being the largest seller at €276.7m, with the UK also doing well at €119.35m. Then a British company, NMS International, organised the UK Pavilion at the Tripoli Arms Fair in November 2010, barely four months before the west went to war with Gaddafi on 19 March 2011.

The connection got even closer for some countries, with French and Italian arms companies maintaining teams in Libya upgrading Mirage planes and armoured vehicles until just a few days before the western bombing campaign started – with one aim being to destroy those same planes and armoured vehicles.

It is a hidden war that is very good indeed for business

From the arms industry’s point of view, what should have happened then was that western states would have spent plenty of money replacing the expensive missiles and guided bombs they used, while a pro-western Libya established after Gaddafi had been lynched would have wanted to build a modern air force, army and navy, buying lots of weapons from those friendly western states that had helped terminate the previous regime.

A lucrative desert war

The first part worked fine but the second didn’t. Libya descended into disarray – but even that disaster was not all bad news for the arms trade. One of the grim results of the 2011 war was that arms cascaded out of Libya across the Sahara and Sahel, greatly boosting the numerous Islamist paramilitary movements across the region. To counter this, thousands of western troops are now deployed across the region, air and drone strikes are commonplace, millions of dollars’ worth of precision-guided munitions are being used and vast amounts of equipment are being provided to many governments.

It is a hidden war that is very good indeed for business and is now being enhanced by a sudden escalation of the burgeoning civil war to the north in Libya itself. There, the UN-backed Government of National Accord in Tripoli is facing the forces of the self-styled Libyan National Army from the east of the country, headed by Haftar, a former Gaddafi military leader. In the past few days Haftar’s army has moved closer to Tripoli itself as it tries to take over the whole of the country, even as UN personnel seek vainly to arrange a ceasefire.

The government has recently been equipped by western states. In one episode over the weekend government forces shot down a Libyan National Army aircraft. Since then, the LNA has moved close enough to Tripoli to fire artillery that has killed at least four people and wounded twenty in the southern district of Abu Salim. Thousands of people have been displaced from their homes with at least 150 killed in this most recent bout of the war.

Wealthy supporters

One aspect of the war is particularly good news for the arms industry. While the conflict is between the government and the LNA, above them are outside actors. Much of the weaponry of the UN-backed government comes from western states, with Italy being the most prominent. That is one of the reasons why the government is proving more resilient than some had expected, although there are also regional supporters involved, including Qatar.

On the other side, the insurgent LNA is strongly backed by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. They both want a united Libya under Haftar or another strong leader who will suppress dissent and be especially hard on Islamist paramilitaries. This backing extends to their direct military involvement, with UAE air force strike aircraft aiding the rebels as they move towards the capital.

This is where history repeats itself: the UAE is one of the heaviest buyers of western aircraft and munitions in recent years, second only to Saudi Arabia among the Arab states across the Middle East. In short, the western-backed government is fighting the western-equipped LNA. However it ends, and however many people are killed, injured or displaced, the arms companies and their shareholders will come out of it well.

Paul Rogers is professor in the department of peace studies at Bradford University, northern England.

22 April 2019

Source: www.transcend.org

By Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich

The world reacted with shock to the fire that engulfed the Notre Dame Cathedral. A symbol of Paris, this 13th Century architectural marvel is home to precious historical religious relics and artwork; made even more famous throughout the world by Victor Hugo’s famous novel, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame.

World leaders were quick to react to the tragedy of this fire. News headlines around the world brought this disastrous incident to every living room around the globe and nations commiserated with the French. The inaudible sigh of relief was palpable when the structure was saved and with it, the history that laid within the walls. The past was not lost.

But another fire may well stop the future. Concurrent with the fire that ravaged Notre Dame, another historical place of worship, the al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem fell victim to a fire of an unknown origin. The Mosque which was completed in 705 CE, is the third holiest site in Islam. But its fate is not shared by Moslems alone – it touches us all.

The world can be forgiven for their ignorance of this tragedy – and the importance of al Aqsa. The media simply dismissed it, as it does with all things that must be kept from the general public. This is not the first fire that was left unmentioned by mainstream media (MSM). A previous fire set to the Mosque by a zealous Australian Christian in 1969 failed to capture headlines. Indeed, the threats to al Aqsa Mosque have accelerated over the years to a point of no return. Given that the fate of this Mosque holds the fate of us all, how can the media be forgiven for their deafening silence?

In 2006, the Israeli government began work on an exact replica of the Hurva synagogue on its original site. The rebuilding of the Hurva is designed to usher in the rebuilding of the Third Temple. Rabbis were tailored for the special kind of garments they would be wearing in a “rebuilt temple” – the ‘end of time’. But the Mosque still stands in the way of building the Third Temple – for now.[i]

It took four years to complete the work on Hurva. When presidential candidate, Barack Obama promised AIPAC an undivided Jerusalem in 2008, the building of the Hurva synagogue was well on the way – which signaled continued future attacks on the al-Aqsa Mosque to make way for construction of the Third Temple.

In 2009, Israeli news headlines reassured Israelis that “Netanyahu would build the Third Temple”. Soon after, in 2010, JTA reported that “Our Land of Israel” party had put posters on 200 city buses in Jerusalem showing an artist’s rendition of the Third Temple on the al-Aqsa Mosque site with the slogan, “May the Temple be built in our lifetime.”

Donald Trump deliverance on Obama’s promise has made these fanatics more hopeful. How could they not be with Senator Broxon telling a cheering crowd

“Now, I don’t know about you, but when I heard about Jerusalem — where the King of Kings where our soon coming King is coming back to Jerusalem, it is because President Trump declared Jerusalem to be capital of Israel”.

And how do we ignore Benjamin Netanyahu taking ownership of Jerusalem stating that the Bible, the holy book for Jews and Christians, had justified it. Should we then be surprised that rabbis sent a letter of gratitude to Trump, praising him for “fulfilling prophecies”.

In March, as Israeli elections were approaching, it was reported that “The Israeli Third Temple” party had gained traction. And while the mainstream media can ignore the latest fire that broke out at the al Aqsa mosque on April 15, can we afford to ignore the blazing headlines of the same day: “END OF THE WORLD: Jerusalem third temple ‘fulfills Biblical prophecy’ of the end times” and other Israeli news ushering in the building of the Third Temple and the ‘end of times’?

Some may take comfort in the fact that this is all sheer madness, but one cannot ignore the insanity of which we were warned of by Warner D. Farr, LTC, U.S. Army who in 1999 reported his findings in the “Counterproliferation papers, Future Warfare Series No. 2, USAF Counterproliferation Center”. This fascinating report, among other things, sounded the alarm over the probability of Gush Emunim, a right- wing religious organization, or others, hijacking a nuclear device to “liberate” the Temple Mount for the building of the third temple. This is powerful insanity with insane powers enabling it.

Is the world ready to embrace this madness and accept this fate at this juncture? Are you?

NOTE:

[i] Tom Mountain. Preparing for the Third TempleJewish Advocate. Boston:Aug 22, 2008. Vol. 199, Iss. 34, p. 9 (1 pp.)

__________________________________________________________

Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich is an independent researcher and writer with a focus on U.S. foreign policy and the role of lobby groups in influencing US foreign policy.

22 April 2019

Source: www.transcend.org